I have a brown rosetted 4 month old female who I intend to breed around a year old, or older, depending on her heat cycle of course. I am looking at purchasing a stud to breed with her and have some questions about what color male to get.

My female is a carrier of the snow gene. So I've been thinking that I will get a silver male who is also a carrier of the snow gene. Would this allow for brown, silver and snow kittens? Would breeding brown and silver together cause tarnish on the silver kittens?

I purchased my female from Belarus so I don't have the best communication with the breeder as she uses google translator just to understand my messages, then translates her response and sends it back. So I'm really hoping someone here will help!

The whole "this bengal carries -- fill in blank of color" is confusing. Just because they carry for snow or silver, doesn't always mean there will be one in the litter. A breeder friend just had a litter and there was one snow with the four others brown spotted. You just honestly never know what will come out as a result of a paring. You can only hope! Here is something written by Carol with Eriador Bengals and I doubt you can understand much of it. I cannot, but it may bring some light to your situation:

I have a brown rosetted 4 month old female who I intend to breed around a year old, or older, depending on her heat cycle of course. I am looking at purchasing a stud to breed with her and have some questions about what color male to get.

My female is a carrier of the snow gene. So I've been thinking that I will get a silver male who is also a carrier of the snow gene. Would this allow for brown, silver and snow kittens? Would breeding brown and silver together cause tarnish on the silver kittens?

I purchased my female from Belarus so I don't have the best communication with the breeder as she uses google translator just to understand my messages, then translates her response and sends it back. So I'm really hoping someone here will help!

Thanks!!

So a Brown who carries for Snow has the colour genetics of this:

B b(s)

Now Silver is actually different from what you think - it's not a colour - it's the inhibitor gene instead. So you actually need to know the colour to know what you are going to get - unless the cat has been genetically tested (or the parent has a solid colour) this may not be possible. Since you are saying that the silver is a carrier for snow, this means you need to get a kitten that has

? b(s) for ColourIi for Inhibitor (the lower case i meaning that one parent is not silver).

So the ? can be B, b, b(l) or b(s) and depending on what it is you will get different results. Assuming it's B (Brown) like the female then yes, you will get Browns, Snows, Silver Browns and Silver Snows - in approximately these ratios:37.5% Silver Brown, 37.5% Brown, 12.5% Silver Snow and 12.5% Snow.

As for Tarnish - it's really really poorly understood. Basically tarnish is the bleed of the colour through the Silver. It's really going to depend on how good of a Silver the Silver male is. The weaker his Silver gene is, the more likely you are to see tarnish on a Silver Brown. Silver Snows are much less likely to see tarnish as they have less colour in the first place.

You didn't mention dilute which is another attribute to watch our for in genetics. It's a recessive gene but if both have dilute you can end up with dilute children which I'm personally not a fan of - watch out for it.

You have to understand the basics of genetics and you are right that what I wrote is probably too complicated.

Let me try it this way.

There are two genes that impact Silver, Brown and Snow.Each gene has 2 values - one from each parent.

Most people are aware of Dominant / Recessive but as a quick note there. If you have something Dominant it always is used. If you have something recessive it's only used if there are no dominant.

Let's look at the Colour Gene (I'll simplify).

Two of the values are Brown and Snow. Brown is dominant over Snow. If one of the parents provides brown then the baby is always brown. if both parents provide Snow then you get Snow. There are only 2 options each time as each parent has one of two values.

If Female is Brown / Snow then she'll pass Brown or Snow to the child. If she passes Brown then the child is always Brown, regardless of the father. If she passes Snow then we look at the father.If the Father is Brown / Snow then if he passes Brown the child is always Brown. If he passes Snow then the child is Snow is the Female passes Snow.

It really is a fairly simple system when you write it out like that. Which is why if you put a brown spotted with a snow, you may not always get a snow -- or there may be one in the entire liter. Litters are always a gamble. It's crazy, but one breeder I know had two melanistic kittens in with a litter and both parents are brown. And her last litter had 4 browns and 1 snow. The picture of the litter is super cute with this little white kitten standing out from all the brown.

You have to understand the basics of genetics and you are right that what I wrote is probably too complicated.

Let me try it this way.

There are two genes that impact Silver, Brown and Snow.Each gene has 2 values - one from each parent.

Most people are aware of Dominant / Recessive but as a quick note there. If you have something Dominant it always is used. If you have something recessive it's only used if there are no dominant.

Let's look at the Colour Gene (I'll simplify).

Two of the values are Brown and Snow. Brown is dominant over Snow. If one of the parents provides brown then the baby is always brown. if both parents provide Snow then you get Snow. There are only 2 options each time as each parent has one of two values.

If Female is Brown / Snow then she'll pass Brown or Snow to the child. If she passes Brown then the child is always Brown, regardless of the father. If she passes Snow then we look at the father.If the Father is Brown / Snow then if he passes Brown the child is always Brown. If he passes Snow then the child is Snow is the Female passes Snow.

If that makes sense then I can try to add the Silver piece of it too which adds another gene into it.

Thank you for your responses! I do understand this much! My female has a snow mom and brown dad, so I suppose there's a 50% chance that she carries the snow gene with her dominant brown. So what happens now if I breed her with a silver, as the inhibitor gene is separate from the colour gene, correct?

It does not matter what type of stud you breed your queen with -- you may or may not get a snow or silver or brown rosetted or melanistic. Litters are complete surprises. Heck, you may even get a marble in there as most bengals have marbles back in the pedigree. You need to just mate the cats and be surprised when your girl delivers -- that's all I can say. LOL Recessive genes can pop up anytime.

Thank you for your responses! I do understand this much! My female has a snow mom and brown dad, so I suppose there's a 50% chance that she carries the snow gene with her dominant brown. So what happens now if I breed her with a silver, as the inhibitor gene is separate from the colour gene, correct?

If her mother was Snow than she must have at least one snow gene (100%). Snow is the most recessive gene so her mother must have snow/snow as her genes.Since your kitten is brown then your kitten must have a colour pattern of Brown/snow (or B b(s)).

For a Male Silver - he will have Ii or II for his Inhibitor gene. If he is II then all his kittens will be Silver - 100%. If he is Ii then 50% of his kittens will be Silver and 50% not Silver.

Sorry, Sherry, genetics are pretty solid here - most people just don't know/understand them or have the specific information on their Cats. Our cats will never breed anything but Brown Rosetted Bengals. We can never get a marble or anything else with our current cats. Yes, litters can appear random if you don't know the genetics of the parents.

Yeah, as far as I understand it, brown v snow is a basic Punnet square like you do in school... But when there are more variables, they get more complicated. But if you know the genetics of the breeding pair there won't be any surprises. My boy's parents just had another litter with a surprise snow in it, but that just means that my breeder did t k now both her cats carried for Snow. My boy may or may not carry for it l, though.

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